


Plausible, Benign, Uncomplicated (in theory)

by Irrelevancy



Series: A Well-Stocked Armory of Bitchy Remarks [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Captive Prince Fusion, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Cauterization, Gen, Graphic Description, If this doesn't make sense please tell me argh, Interrogation, Intrigue, Law is nasty but for a good reason, M/M, Multi, Nobody says what they mean, Past Sexual Abuse, Plot Twists, Stabbing, Swordfighting, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 20:55:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22004338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrelevancy/pseuds/Irrelevancy
Summary: Sabo could understand why. Even putting aside all their history, he wouldn’t want to be touched by a man whose glare screamed nothing but I want to kill you, either.In which the reports of everybody’s deaths have been greatly exaggerated, but maybe not for much longer. Part 2 of the MAS Captive Prince!AU.
Relationships: Fushicho Marco | Phoenix Marco/Portgas D. Ace/Sabo, Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco/Sabo, Sabo/Trafalgar D. Water Law
Series: A Well-Stocked Armory of Bitchy Remarks [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1583926
Comments: 14
Kudos: 46





	Plausible, Benign, Uncomplicated (in theory)

**Author's Note:**

> MANY THANKS to the anon who sent me: "How about Sabo being undercover and being ordered to interrogate Marco or is given Marco as a prize? Sabo indicates he can break cover to get Marco out, but Marco declines and Sabo doesn't hold back. I want to see what you think would be Sabo's darkest impulses when he has Marco at his mercy."
> 
> For reference: the warring kingdoms are Goa, currently ruled by Doflamingo's Regency in which Sabo is the Crown Prince, and the New World Governance or NWG, where the Newgates are in power and Marco was the Crown Prince, before Teach's coup. This will probably make a lot more sense if you read the first fic in the series, but essentially we have Laurent!Sabo, Damen!Marco, and Auguste!Ace.
> 
> WARNING for CaPri canon-levels of violence and CSA depiction. See End Notes for more details.

“I _said_ , release him.”

With a meticulous clench of his fingers, Sabo removed Pica’s hand from Marco’s person. Remove, he thought, was probably the most mundane word for something that induced that kind of calcium crack, that kind of scream. But Sabo could use a little mundanity right now; it dissuaded his own scream, the one perched in his throat just under his chin, from bursting into flight.

Marco’s kick, strong and well-aimed right to Pica’s center mass, also helped keep Sabo calm. Marco’s grab for Sabo’s sword, however, didn’t. Only his quick reflexes kept Marco from taking the sword, and as soon as Sabo’s hands clasped over Marco’s on the hilt, Marco yanked his arm away.

Sabo could understand why. Even putting aside all their history, he wouldn’t want to be touched by a man whose glare screamed nothing but _I want to kill you,_ either.

It would be stupid, at this point, for Marco to resist further—there was Vergo at the door and Pica, however cracked and winded, at his back, not to mention whomever else was sent from Doflamingo’s little entourage. Oh yeah, and Sabo with an unsheathed sword and enough anger to ignite a second sun. Meanwhile, Marco had obviously been roughed up by Vergo and his crew in the process of dragging Marco back to the little town temple. For him to take a swing at Sabo now would be akin to suicide, and they both knew it.

Marco swung.

It took an act of true swordsmanship to knock Marco’s punch aside with his sword; the flat of the blade clanged loudly into the soft gold of Marco’s slave cuff, and the blow was probably hard enough to _really_ do Marco’s wrist damage. Just another tally, Sabo supposed, on the grand list of Things He’s Done to Marco that He Could Accept No Complaints for when Retribution Came.

And fucking Marco—he must’ve _really_ thought he was going to die, because he just kept swinging. In an unnatural motion of the sword that made Sabo’s shoulder sting something fierce, Sabo knocked his other fist away too. Then Sabo planted one foot, drove the other knee into Marco’s stomach. Shoved Marco hard enough to slam into the nearest wall.

And when Marco looked up, still every bit the cornered wild beast, Sabo sunk his very frustrated sword into the wooden wall, gleaming edge right by Marco’s neck. Then, for good measure, Sabo yanked that NWG arrowhead from the decimated border town off of his belt, and held that too to Marco’s throat. Only then did Marco deflate a bit, though still with the bared teeth, the vicious eyes that said, _for now_.

It was only with tremendous power of will, and a stern self-reminder about who was watching from above in this temple, that Sabo didn’t exsanguinate Marco right then and there.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Vergo clipped in his usual, awful manner. For all that Sabo already hated Doflamingo, he couldn’t fucking _stand_ Vergo, the man’s self-importance in his misguided loyalty the worst mirror image of what Sabo aspired to be. Marco never even took his eyes off of Sabo. “We’ll take it from here.”

“I just found out that this slave,” Sabo decided to say, “was there the day the barbarians murdered my brother.” He looked Marco in the eyes and felt, viscerally, the piercing _burn_ of his next words: “he _lied_ to me.”

And what Sabo hated most about Marco was that the man, given this, would flinch in culpability.

“You lied to me too,” Marco gritted out, even while the duck of his head right into the point of Sabo’s arrowhead said, _I’m sorry_. Sabo not only wanted to stab him in the neck, but also press his fingers right into the wound, pinch shut the artery and demand Marco _take it back, you fucking asshole, don’t you dare be sorr_ _y now._

“Joker—” Yes, Sabo thought scornfully, Doflamingo _was_ a fucking joke. “—ordered the slave to be returned to the Capital.”

“He dies by my hand,” Sabo promised, and Marco looked like he believed it. “I don’t give a shit what Doffy ordered.”

“There is to be an _interrogation_ ,” Pica shrieked—or at least, everything he said already sounded like a fucking shriek, what with that ridiculous voice of his. He had broken ribs to contend with now as well, and Sabo had to admire his tenacity of pitch. “We are to extract important intel from the prisoner—”

“ _Enough_.” Vergo always did play it smart when it came to protecting Doflamingo’s best interests. It didn’t give Sabo the easiest wire to walk; the likes of Pica were easy to misdirect, but Vergo would not rest until he got done what Doflamingo ordered, and that was, in all likelihood, the murder of Marco. Important intel, his ass. If Sabo let the order through now, Marco would be dead in a ditch by morning. “Take him, let’s go.”

“Touch him again you lose that hand entirely. He’s not going anywhere,” Sabo drawled as his fingers fell lazily from the sword hilt. Marco was watching him warily, an expression Sabo was more than used to. He was also more than used to putting Marco’s life in imminent danger, as well as _being_ the imminent danger to Marco’s life himself. This was, however, a whole different way for Sabo to feel about it—the discomfort was nearly unbearable. There was no seeking in Marco’s eyes, no _and then?_ in the curve of his lips—just the hollow-cheeked belief that Sabo stood more on Vergo’s side than his. It squeezed at Sabo something awful to follow up and say, “what’s the intel you need, then? I’ll get it out of him.”

Marco went for the sword again. This time, when Sabo caught his hand, he couldn’t get away. Whatever scene this was shaping up to be though, Sabo _had_ to find a way to communicate with Marco, and for that to happen, Marco had to find his way back to trusting Sabo again.

So Sabo, applying steady pressure to muscles and joints, moved Marco’s unwilling hand closer to the sword by his face. Then, folding Marco’s fingers around the blade, he squeezed.

“I torture him, you get the intel, I get to kill him,” Sabo declared loudly, as Marco did his best to bite off his yell of pain. The wash of blood down both their forearms was an entwining thread of red. “Tadaa, we’re all of us happy. Except… you.”

 _Look at me._ Yes, there was anger; there was so much anger, Sabo was afraid to look past the wildfire of it, for fear of recognizing what’s already been burnt. But he had to, for the sake of Marco’s shaking hand beneath his, the bob of Marco’s Adam’s apple at the point of his arrowhead. Breathing got difficult but he was used to hiding that, so steadily, Sabo sifted through the wreck. The deal with Koala, the brothel, the saved plate of food—Marco’s answer at the inn, when Sabo asked in pure rhetoric, why Doflamingo tossed his weight behind Stelly’s ascension instead of his.

_Kingmakers always choose the weaker man._

_So_ look _at me_ , Sabo couldn’t demand out loud, but could shape the lines of his face in a language that Marco has always been frighteningly fluent in. _If you m_ _eant what you said_ _. Do you t_ _ruly_ _believe I_ _would_ _abandon you now?_

For the first time since Ace, Sabo found himself in this most difficult mode of communication, where he couldn’t simply lie and swindle his way to his objective. And he knew exactly why he’s given that up—how _awful_ it was to simply wait around for someone to not misunderstand you.

_Look at me, and we’ll survive this together. All of us._

“You should start praying,” Sabo said quietly, as the heat of Marco’s mortality trickled down his forearm and off his elbow. “To the big guy up here.”

And for the first time all evening, Marco finally _looked_. It was one of the hardest things Sabo’s ever done, forcing himself to stay decipherable in that moment. But it _worked_ , comprehension dawning in the lidding of Marco’s eyes. Sabo sneered, an expression that was pure malice to all but two people in the entire goddamn world.

Marco understood, and so did Ace, hidden up in the rafters. Their reunion had been sudden and far too short; Sabo was making it his personal mission to get them all out of this mess alive. He wanted _answers_ , dammit, and Marco would not die before he got them.

Every drop of blood hitting the ground sounded like another tally, tally, tally. But Marco nodded anyways. Shifted his grip under Sabo’s to hold the sword himself. Sabo dropped his hands before anyone could see them shaking.

All he had to do, Sabo told himself, was stall for time, because Ace was surely running off to find them an out.

“Maybe he has enough salvation for us both.”

All he had to do was keep Marco alive.

Sabo snapped off the last bit of its cracked wooden shaft, and buried the arrowhead in Marco’s gut.

* * *

The arrow cut straight into that scar on Marco’s abdomen.

“You should just eviscerate him,” Vergo sneered from the doorway. Like he couldn’t even be bothered to intervene and do the work himself, when Sabo’s hands were already dirty.

Marco’s pupils had gone very big and dark, his lips parted on a trembling pant. He was holding Sabo’s gaze like a drowning man held at rope and Sabo could only hope that from the outside, that bridge of sheer _feeling_ between them just looked like sheer hatred, because he couldn’t look away either.

“Right,” Sabo nodded slowly with a faux-serious purse of lips. Marco’s hand replaced his at the wound when Sabo drew his fingers away, entirely coated with blood. It took every ounce of Sabo’s compartmentalization ability to blink, and snap the thread of connection between him and Marco. He pretended not to see the wilt of Marco’s entire body into itself. “Because as we all know, dead men tell all the tales.”

Sabo stood, and tossed an unimpressed glance at Pica, who was still glaring and cradling his broken hand.

“Since your purpose in life seems to be emulating a brick shithouse,” he said with an unamused smile, “you must know some things about rocks and other such hard items, y’know, to crush a man under. Go find me some big ones.”

Rearing up his truly huge chest, Pica squeaked in righteous outrage, “I am a member of the _Honor Guard_ of his Royal Majesty—”

“And yes, that _is_ an order, thank you for asking.” There was a stare that Sabo has long-perfected, the one that was so eloquent in communicating, _are you really so stupid as to have forgotten who has the power here?_ Pica’s jaw snapped shut with an indignant click. “Sincerely, _your_ Royal Highness, the Crown Prince of Goa and _every_ guard of the kingdom, ‘honor’ or not.”

The threat was well-received. And, as Pica started to storm off—

“ _Nuh-uh_.” The one time Sabo hit Marco with that _bad boy, down_ tone, Marco had slammed the tray of tea he was carrying for Sabo to the ground. Guards had been on Marco in a flash, but Sabo still fully believed the promise in Marco’s glare then— _talk to me like that_ _again and I don’t care who dies along with you_. Pica couldn’t even hope to affect such gravitas, and Sabo gestured him in the other direction with a belittling cock of his head. “Side door’s that way.”

There was, after all, a very finite list of options available to Ace, stuck inside the temple building. If Sabo could get an exit open, the possibilities of Ace outside were endless.

“Crush him,” Vergo spat in displeasure, but didn’t stop Pica from going. “That’ll take too long. Just start cutting off fingers—”

“Oh Vice Admiral.” The light affront in his tone and the slight emphasis on the word _Vice_ successfully got Vergo to pop another vein along his forehead. Sabo didn’t bother hiding this smirk. “Surely you’ve seen this slave’s back. You think I need instructions on how to maim a man?”

The side door Pica threw open slammed shut only after Sabo’s words. Sabo studiously dismissed the thousand images that flooded his mind, each one Ace’s face contorted in a different sort of disgust, with him.

How hard Vergo gritted; he could’ve cracked his own teeth.

“And _surely,_ Your Highness remembers my years of field experience. You cut a man’s ears off and pour hot oil in the hole—”

“—right, and realize only afterwards that you never asked him the question _oops_. Maybe you can carry on with the interrogation in _sign language_ —”

“—have always been _highly_ effective in the field—”

“—but we’re not a country at war, are we? Your Joke Regent said so himself, so what need does _my_ kingdom have for you, Vice Admiral? In fact, you may join Guard-comma-Honor outside; he shops for rocks, you shop for land to farm in your early retirement, how does that sound?”

“It sounds—” Trafalgar Law strolled into the room, easy as you please. There was no quenching of the flashfire rage that coursed through Sabo at the betrayal. Vergo smirked, and Sabo wrestled his breathing under control. “—dangerously like you’re stalling for time, Your Highness.”

Sabo scoffed. “ _You’re_ accusing _me_ of treason?”

“It’s only treason to betray His Majesty.” It wasn’t like Sabo ever trusted the guy, but it was still a blow to know that he’s never even come close to suspecting Law was the mole in their midst. How could Sabo have not seen it, in that arrogant smirk, the brazen drawl of his tone? “And it’s certainly not helping your cause, that you’ve left the weapon inside your slave to stymie the bleeding.”

How could Sabo have not seen it, in the pathological intelligence of Law’s insolent eyes?

“Oh,” Sabo intoned, “is that what I’ve done?”

With a neat two-step, he turned back to face Marco again. Like the inevitable reach of kelp to sun and sea surface, Marco drew up his laboriously clenched jaw, met Sabo’s gaze.

“Go on then,” Sabo told him, “take it out.”

Marco swallowed, lips going pale. Then, glassy gaze dipping again, he dug shaking fingers into the wound, and began fishing out the arrowhead.

 _This pleases you_ , Sabo thought to himself. Two years. Two miserable years he’s lived thinking Ace, the only bright and good and warm thing that existed in a world like Goa, was dead. This was the man who took Ace away from him, and then _kept_ Ace away from him. _H_ _e’s suffering now, nothing close to how badly_ you _hurt. Go on, f_ _eel pleased._

But what sort of world order would it be, if Sabo ever got what he wanted? He smiled, at the flood of blood pouring between Marco’s fingers. He kept his limbs loose and contented, in his stroll over to the burning coal furnace. He made his motions deliberately casual when he snagged a metal candlestick on his way past it.

“What kind of spineless worm,” Vergo spat, “obeys the orders of his own execution?”

“How should I know?” Sabo replied blandly as he fed the candlestick into the hottest heart of the coals. “I only train them. That kind of mentality… you should ask the expert beside you.”

When Sabo slanted a look at him, Law just sneered.

“You think you know me?”

“I know what you deserve.” The common conception was untrue; Sabo’s always known where the line was. How could you strategize the crossing of it, otherwise? “Being Doflamingo’s plaything again? Is exactly it.”

“His dick _is_ bigger than yours.”

It’s not that Sabo didn’t know Law could be dangerous. He’d simply made the mistake of believing that Law’s danger could be wielded by him. Actually, the breach in trust was twofold—Sabo both failed in his trust of Law (specifically, his trust in Law’s pretty words about the failures of Doflamingo’s governance, and how Sabo was the only one he knew could bring Doffy down) and in his trust of himself. He’d thought Law perfectly leashed and reined; he’d trusted _himself_ to trust in Law’s harmlessness. Before the Paramount, Sabo had always outsourced that second layer of trust to Ace—his own rotten character meant he was necessarily a poor judge of everybody else’s, while Ace, whatever his own flawed beliefs about himself, was always _better_.

...Still though, Sabo felt that something was _off_. His own hubris aside (and he’d always been, in a completely non-arrogant fashion, good at putting that aside), Sabo still wanted a second opinion, and seeing as Ace was out and about busy trying to save their lives, he needed to consult another good man.

He dropped to a crouch in front of Marco again, just as the arrowhead slipped from Marco’s wound and grip, hitting the ground with a loud metallic _clang_. Flecks of blood splashed onto Sabo’s boots.

“Hey,” he hummed, “you did it. Let’s see the damage.”

Marco’s hands were reluctant to depart the wound, and his expression—the _qui vive_ gnarl of it—told Sabo his hesitation was as much about keeping the blood in as keeping Sabo’s eyes off.

Sabo slapped his hand away with a strike that stung both their flesh. He could bear witness to the consequences of his own actions, thank you very much.

The stab hadn’t been deep enough to perforate organs, Sabo had made sure of that. This was about the drama, after all, the most life-threatening improvisation Marco’s probably ever taken part in. Blood flowed steadily like red stage curtains, and Sabo nudged apart Marco’s legs to make room for himself to lean in closer.

“So what do you think?” he asked Marco, absently jerking his head in Law’s direction. “Does Sir Traitorpants there have a point?”

There was, impossibly, a brief flash of humor in Marco’s eyes. As clear as day, Sabo could hear in his mind Marco’s dry tone saying, _I don’t know, your cock is pretty_ _huge_ _._ Marco couldn’t say it now, of course, that they’re playing at adversaries (and when, exactly, did Marco the Prince-killer become Marco the Good Man, Marco the confidant, such that hostility needed to be consciously played?), but knowledge that he _would’ve_ said it triggered a surge of sheer _feeling_ in Sabo.

Feeling that he ruthlessly suppressed, because of how utterly useless it was at this juncture. He was sprinting through a war zone with Marco as his meat shield dammit, and he would thank Marco not to distract him.

Marco, of course, understood what he was actually asking; this wouldn’t be the first time since Marco’s offer of a _mutually beneficial acquaintanceship_ that Sabo’s expressly requested—with the implicit weight of his trust behind—Marco’s profession of faith. Lacking the words and breath to reply however, Marco let his head roll to grimace darkly at Law. _I didn't see this coming from you at all_ , his expression read. There was upset confusion in the stricken clenches of his fingers, and Sabo remembered the few times he’s spotted Marco and Law chatting in their military camp.

_You think we were right to trust him, huh?_

Sabo lifted a leg, and pressed his knee, _hard_ , into Marco’s stomach.

When Marco's head tossed back with a violent, feral scream, Sabo's hand was there to catch him before he could concuss himself against the wall. Sabo used this grip to bring Marco in closer, to press harder against the wound. He pulled Marco so close that he could smell the salt of Marco’s instinctual tears, the streaks of it that now cleared paths down Marco’s dirty cheeks.

"Why _do_ you do as I say?" He had to continue the conversation, and Vergo’s question lingered on his mind. Marco's grip on the sword beside them tightened in answer as a tortured groan escaped Marco's throat. "All this time then, if you had been at the Paramount. Why have you just _obeyed_?"

_Why didn't you just tell me Ace was alive?_

This time, Marco's glare was for him.

"You _know_ why," came croaking out, and Marco was absolutely right. Doflamingo’s ploy of sending Sabo Ace’s killer enslaved worked in ways Doffy never even planned for: Sabo had stayed silent about his knowledge of Marco’s true identity ( _a gift of good will_ , Doffy had jeered, _between the reconciling kingdoms_ ), while Marco had stayed silent about Ace’s survival—because why would the common foot soldier that Doffy professed him to be know an imperial secret?

 _They told me to stay in the palace_ , Ace had told him, harried, moments before Vergo had shown up and Ace had had to scale up to the rafters. _And hide my identity when I went out, because people were after me after the war, and I—_

“You could’ve bargained with me for better,” Sabo pressed. The emotion that came now to Marco’s eyes was torment—not of the physical variety (Marco had been looking so constantly pained now that Sabo could easily filter out his agony of body) but the emotional. Like when he’d looked _sorry_ before, Marco was once again distressed by the morality of his own choices.

(As if he wasn’t keeping the company of the worst point of comparison. Next to Sabo, anybody, much less Marco, seemed a saint.)

“I had _nothing_ ,” Marco insisted, voice coming out like a nail pulled from nail bed, “to bargain with.”

That seemingly flat statement of bitterness invited translation. Sabo ran his memories back through his frenzied reunion with Ace, and the broadest, messiest strokes of events Ace had painted him. _I’d lost my memories_ , had been Ace’s pale-faced explanation for not returning to Goa. _Marco_ _told me I was a general of the New World_ _recovering in palace care_ _, so I just—stayed. I didn’t_ know _I had you to come back to._

The anger that had bellowed up in Ace’s tone—plus what Sabo had come to know of Marco—painted an answer that seemed all-too-viable, to the question of why Marco hadn’t just told Sabo that Ace was alive, and that the Crown Prince of the New World Governance was a damn good swap in return for a Goan general. Both Ace and Marco, after all, had been heroes to their respective sides of the Paramount War.

 _I had nothing to bargain with._ He meant, _I’d lied to Ace to keep him as a bargaining chip for my family, and I couldn’t follow through._ Sabo saw the play of events so clearly now: Marco, spiriting away Ace’s dying body to heal after the War with intention to keep Ace as a political prisoner, only to find out that Ace has lost his memories.

And how guilty Marco, a man with all these ideas about honor and fair play, must have felt by continuing to keep Ace’s identity from him. So guilty that he would opt to suffer Sabo’s ( _unnecessary, completely unnecessary_ ) vengeance than make Ace suffer an actual trade.

Sabo had never felt such loathing and rapture _both_ for a man, and could only convey the former with further rupture to an open wound. He only hoped Marco would survive to receive sentiment of the latter.

(He hoped Marco would survive him at all.)

“ _Enough_ ,” Vergo ordered, “talking. Does he have the answers we want or not?”

“I’m sure it’d help, Vergo-san,” Law droned beside him, “if you’d actually ask him the question.”

“Keep your mouth shut, brat,” Vergo snapped. “Our border town was destroyed thanks to intel from your army unit.”

Blood loss hung Marco’s head with his chin nearly touching chest, but Sabo still caught the incredulous squint of Marco’s eyes. It really was patently ridiculous, that they were blaming Marco for their own acts of treason. _Law_ had been the one to pass intel out of Sabo’s unit, and Doflamingo had been the one to order mercenaries on the border town, faking New World collusion in the bloody attack on innocent Goan civilians.

“Tell us how he’s been trafficking sensitive information.”

“Sure,” Sabo resounded, as he lifted Marco’s attentions once more by the hair. “Tell us how you’ve been trafficking sensitive information.”

Marco blinked once at him, slow and aching. Then his lips split into a smile right off of Sabo’s own face.

“Go to hell,” he proclaimed. Sabo felt _proud_. “I’m not telling you anything.”

But Sabo also felt like _war_ , because that was not only defiance, but also Marco’s go-ahead. _Go on_ , Marco was essentially saying. _Torture me. Continue this charade to buy Ace time to save us, while I bleed out at your hands_.

It’s not like he deserved to, but Sabo was getting real sick of bloodying his hands under circumstances he had no control over. (He supposed on the flip side, Marco was probably sick of getting bloodied too.)

“Your Highness.” Spat from Vergo’s mouth, Sabo’s title sounded like a curse. “String him up and strangle him already.”

"Ah, the Donquixote classic," Law drawled. "Would you like to borrow my garroting wire?”

"I would just wrap the wire around his balls and rip them right off," Vergo sneered.

"There's an idea." Law's voice was so even, so melodic in its tenor, that Sabo nearly didn’t hear his jarring words. "Why don't you just fuck the answer out of him?"

Marco’s eyes widened just enough to kickstart a whole mess of unpleasantness in Sabo’s chest. What, did Marco think—?

Sure, they’d fucked, that night in the tiny tent, after finding the mercenary camp and after the Amazons saved them per the deal struck with Sabo. Marco had been hurt then too, hadn’t he? It’d only been bruises painted over the knife scar on his stomach that night. Sabo had asked absently after its origins and Marco had went mute—but that was fine. Sabo hadn’t been after answers anyways, but balance. Fed _hakesh_ and too wary of their just-been-saved status to reject the celebratory drink of aphrodisiac, Marco had turned in for a night of discomfort. Sabo, who had told the mercenaries to _make it hurt_ , thought he could at least lend Marco a hand.

(But Marco, with his parsing eyes and literacy, managed to read in Sabo’s silences and motions all the ways that hand was no mere continuation of their attritional exchanges, the favors for favors because neither could stand to owe the other anything for long. He’d leaned in to whisper, _it’s okay, I forgive you_ , and proceeded to turn Sabo’s answer of stuttered breath to water vapor on both their skins.)

With that unspoken, but fully acknowledged history between them, Sabo was certain Marco was thinking that fucking as torture ( _rape_ , Sabo wanted to howl, _the word was rape_ ) wouldn’t be so bad. It might even be _safer_ , to play on psychological torment instead of physical. But Marco could go right to hell if he thought Sabo would cross that fucking line, if he thought he could throw himself on Sabo’s dick like a goddamn grenade and save them both, if he thought Sabo would _taint_ —

Sabo shot abruptly to his feet, one trouser leg soaked from knee to ankle with dark, sticky blood. Marco convulsed out a hissing breath as the pressure was removed from his wound.

“After all,” and Law was _still_ talking, running that awful mouth Sabo had appreciated once, “aren’t you famous for bringing the barbarian bitch to heel with the power of your dick alone?”

“Not everybody,” Sabo demurred, “tosses his principles aside the moment some royalty gets a cock in him. Projection is unbecoming, soldier."

“What’s the point of conditioning him with sex,” Law said, “if you can’t leash him back with it? Isn’t that right, Vergo-san?”

“You would know, shitty brat,” was all Vergo had to say to that.

 _Where_ , Sabo thought with uncharacteristically directed viciousness, _was Ace?_ Marco sat prone against the wall, one hand still on the sword because Sabo had put it there. Because Sabo had squeezed, and he’d understood the safeguard Sabo was trying to put in place. It was a sham of a safety switch, but it was the only thing that could work, given the circumstances—should Marco really need an out from their little production, all he needed to do was cut his palm even _more_ on the blade. The implicit promise was that, at the sound of waterfalling blood, Sabo would drop the act, drop his role of indolent-hedonist-untamed prince, drop his last opportunity to reclaim Goa and return to his country in glory, just to save Marco.

And Marco’s hand hadn’t moved an inch on the blade. Sabo wondered how much of that was Marco knowing he could take more pain, and how much of that was Marco _not_ trusting Sabo to save him.

Sabo channeled that pulse of anger now—had to, to go through with what was coming—and uttered, “what, nothing?”

The candlestick, made with silvery alloy, was glowing red-hot in the furnace now. Sabo took out the pair of thick wool winter gloves from his pocket and slid both on a single hand. Marco watched him do this with eyes that went awfully, horribly glassy.

“You know I can make you talk.” He really was _such_ a good actor, to sound so devoid of feeling now; Sabo made himself sick to his stomach. “Just say the word.”

 _Tap out now_. Sabo knew that he may not stand a chance against Vergo, probably didn’t stand a chance against both Vergo and Law. Ace might be too late, caught up by dispatching all the Regency’s soldiers outside, only to return and find both Sabo and Marco dead in the temple. But Sabo had to offer. He had to see, for his own selfish fucking self, Marco acknowledge his willingness to give up his _kingdom_ for this.

“No.”

And because Marco was Marco, he did acknowledge it. Sabo had made a mistake; he shouldn’t have offered, because Marco’s small, gratified smile only made it worse. Cracks splintered across Sabo’s mask, and he had to quickly turn his back and step away to hide it. He stood before the candlestick, watching the fire of his own making. _This will damage him_ , Sabo thought. _He will bleed more when I push this into his wound, and he will burn. He will smell his own cooking flesh, and beg for that plain old knife scar bac_ _k. He will scream, and I will have made that happen._

Sabo was right, on all accounts.

Marco’s hand came flying off the sword because any reasonable man’s would, would have a long time ago, and Sabo still didn’t stop. He held the candlestick in one hand and Marco’s convulsing body in the other, keeping the two in savage contact at the point of wounding. He kept at it until the heat began to seep uncomfortably through his gloves. He kept at it some more, until the heat burned through his gloves.

When he finally dropped the candlestick and Marco both, Sabo peeled the gloves off his now-blistered palm. Tossed them to the ground beside Marco, who had crumpled, like shale shingles off the temple’s roof in a howling thunderstorm. Sabo was too grateful to feel the coward at the fact that Marco kept his face in the dirt, because who knew what expression Marco would sport for Sabo otherwise? Hatred would be bad, fear would be worse. Exoneration would be worse than worse.

The pain from the now-cauterized wound was too much for consciousness and unconsciousness both. Marco didn’t seem to know how to hold his body—chest falling and arching and falling and arching off the floor—nor where to put his hands. His hands seized around his abdomen repeatedly, trying to clutch at a wound that was in too much agony to clutch. Marco was veritably grinding his temple against the floor, his breaths half-screams as he writhed.

"Oh my," Law murmured. "Maybe you really do want to kill him."

Sabo must have developed a bad habit, in the two years of Ace’s death, for calling on Ace in his times of need. He’d had very little need generally, but very much need for Ace always—so that’s where his mind went now. _Ace_ , he thought. _Ace._

_Ace I can’t do this anymore._

_Ace I—that’s it, I’m done._

_Ace I can’t hurt Marco anymore._

Sabo shuffled a helpless inch closer to Marco, and at the sight of his blood-spotted boots, Marco, aptly, flinched away.

 _Ace,_ _help him, ‘_ _cause I can’t._

There was motion suddenly on Sabo’s left—and an inked hand reaching for—

Law, slowly, retracted his hand under the force of Sabo’s glare. Sabo knew, from the considering look in Law’s shadowed eyes, that he had given away too much. But he didn’t care, not when Marco was—

“Still breathing,” Law commented with an _insolent_ blink. “Your job’s not done.”

Sabo’s hand twitched for the sword still embedded in the wall. Law saw, but did nothing.

 _Ace_ —

"How about it then, my idea?" All Sabo wanted was for Law to stop talking, for the world to stop burning and for Marco to be—not here. Not anywhere near where Sabo could reach. "All the castle servants said they could hear him screaming into the night, after his flogging. Fucking him now shouldn't be all that much different."

There was only one other man Sabo has ever wanted to kill as much as he wanted to kill Law in that moment.

"Humiliation," Law said, "the utter dilapidation of a man—or boy, or kid, whatever—to get what you want, that's Doffy's way. Isn't that right, Vergo-san?"

“Like I fucking said,” Vergo snapped, annoyed, “ _you_ would know—”

“But that’s it, I _don’t_ know.” Something had shifted. The direction of the wind, maybe; prevalence and cardinality recalibrated. “I don’t remember what Doflamingo did to me, after Cora-san was executed.”

Sabo’s eyes never left Marco’s prone form, the diminishing kinetics of it. _You think we were right to trust him, huh?_

Law turned to face Vergo, arrogant and brazen, yet hollow all at once.

“But I remember you were there, after. So tell me Vergo-san, on Spider Miles. _What did Doflamingo do to me?_ ”

While he always aimed for blood, Sabo didn’t anticipate being so sickeningly accurate in his choice of insults. _Doflamingo’s plaything_.

And then Sabo heard Vergo scoff.

“What you asked for in the first place. You wanted to be part of the family, you wanted to be _his_ —”

Law’s sword left Vergo’s body with a wet, ugly squelch. How impressive, Sabo thought blankly, the strength necessary to fully bisect another man.

A huge explosion erupted outside, rocking the walls of the temple around them.

“Oh,” Law commented, “is that why Pica never came back?” Then he eyed Sabo over his shoulder, mouth pressed into a grimace that refused to be apologetic. _Your pain_ , his expression seemed to say, _for mine_. “Look, it's nothing personal. I just needed a way to get to Vergo. Get your slave to my carriage and I’ll take a look at that wound. If he’s still alive.”

“You’re not _touching_ —”

The front doors burst open and Ace rushed in. He skidded to a halt almost immediately though, at the truly _strange_ configuration of bodies in the room: Law and Sabo standing, not in a face-off but certainly like two men wounded (Sabo saw Ace’s eyes dance down his body in search for injuries, then looking relieved for not finding any); Marco and the two pieces of Vergo on the floor.

There was something though, in Ace’s face (not the blood of all the enemies he’d cut down outside to get back in) when he saw the top of Marco’s head, that made Sabo flash back once more to that short, short conversation they got to have before Vergo showed up with Marco in tow.

 _I’m going to kill him_ , Sabo had said (the irony was certainly painful, but probably not more so than a burning candlestick stuck straight into an abdominal wound), white-knuckled upon the discovery that Ace wasn’t dead. That anger at Marco for keeping that secret seemed all of a sudden so long ago.

 _Kill who?_ Ace had asked, and then—when Sabo’d just proceeded to bitch about the audacity, the boorishness, the _nerve_ of the man—insisted, _Sabo, kill who?_

 _Marco_ , Sabo had snapped absently, _who else?_

Ace had gone so visibly pale that Sabo could see it in the dim temple lighting.

_...No. No, Marco’s dead._

_No,_ and Sabo had been so wrapped up in his own angst he hadn’t registered the shift of gravitas, had missed the way Ace stumbled. _Marco’s_ fine _, the reports of_ everybody’s _deaths have apparently been greatly exaggerated—_

 _Sabo no, Marco’s_ dead, had been Ace’s urgent insistence, but less like he wanted to convince Sabo and more like he wanted Sabo to convince him otherwise, _I know he’s dead because I_ —

Vergo’s bang on the door had cut Ace off. Sabo remembered the scar on Marco’s torso that he had aimed for with the arrowhead, and felt an awful intuition for what Ace had been about to tell him.

He could only watch, still frozen where he stood, as Ace approached the fallen Marco (Law, in the meantime, slipped quickly out of the room like the shrewd survivor he was). Ace’s hands shook reaching out, and the unconscious Marco came back awake with a recoil and a bit-off groan. Ace almost retreated, but, ever-brave, kept up the gentle grip until he’d turned Marco completely around.

Sabo had to look away from Ace’s face when he saw that it was in fact, Marco; it was to _nobody’s_ benefit, should Sabo break down as well.

“ _Marco_ ,” Sabo heard Ace gasp into a sob. “You’re—”

 _Alive, but just barely?_ Sabo filled in the cut-off sentence with a hundred more worse things.

“And you’re okay.” Marco’s reply was barely, barely audible. “I’m glad.”

“I didn’t mean—I—” It physically hurt Sabo, to hear Ace sound so badly in pain. But out of everyone present, Sabo deserved the least amount of sympathy. So he took that pain and swallowed it whole. “It was _Teach_ , he showed up after you told me the truth and—oh god, I was so _stupid_ , I’d only just gotten my memories back and he suggested you had killed Sabo, and I believed him ‘cause of that fucking _nickname_ —”

 _Prince-killer._ Sabo and Ace really were bloody soulmates, to have lived such parallel lives on the blinded, opposite sides of the Goa-NWG border, to have lived such lives on the two sides of _Marco_. Fooled by a goddamn epithet and sought revenge. Gutted Marco, to the benefit of more legitimate enemies.

“Teach was the one who sent him to me,” Sabo intoned, and Ace turned so quickly his hair whipped up in a halo. He looked, once again, like he wanted Sabo to tell him anything but the truth; the only times Ace wanted him to lie, and Sabo couldn’t do it. “You heard what I did. I thought he’d killed _you_.”

Looking so devastated, Ace opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a great, wheezing gasp from Marco. Sabo jumped too, taking a step forward before he remembered he didn’t deserve—he was probably the last person—

Marco, in all his agony, had one hand in Ace’s, and the other reaching out for Sabo. Sabo felt as impossible and insubstantial as bloody smoke, descending to his knees on the other side of Marco.

“I—”

“If you apologize,” Sabo heard himself say, Marco’s palm held between his. This was the one that had braced the sword, but hadn’t cut deeper. “I swear I really will kill—”

Marco, the absolute bastard, actually _laughed_.

“Help me up then,” he whispered, as if the slightest exertion of gravity wouldn’t pull him down flat again right now. “We should get out of here, quickly.”

Sabo couldn’t help but ask, “ _we_?”

Ace’s grip clasped onto his arm. _Hard_. It was a pressure-almost-pain that meant to ground him, and it worked. When Sabo looked up, it was to meet Ace’s fiercest gaze. He knew exactly what Sabo meant by that question, and was fielding it for the exhausted, bleeding, and _cooked_ Marco.

“Yes, _we_. In that guy’s carriage. We’ll get Marco medical care, Marco will _survive_ , and we’ll figure it out after. That’s the plan, got it?”

_Ace, help him. Help us._

The cut on Marco’s palm was actually dry in Sabo’s blistered hands. Sabo thought back to Marco’s scar—the original one, put there by Ace, before Sabo went back over it—and the impossible timeline of it all. He thought about Garp’s stories about the offspring of magical beings, about Ace’s impossible body heat. He thought about the other epithet, the one he wanted so desperately now to use.

_Marco the Phoenix. Survivor of Wars._

“Alright, got it. We’ll do this together.”

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Law was sexually abused by Doflamingo in his unspecified youth after Corazon was killed. Vergo says nasty shit about it before promptly being viciously murdered.
> 
> Thank you Lucky for your expert insights into torture (this was the prompt that inspired the skinning fic skjdfksd) and Chromi for your expert insights into what happens when I shove a hot metal candlestick into an abdominal wound. : ) Also thank you Depths for promising to kill me if I didn't finish this today.
> 
> Y'ALL THIS SAGA IS. SO MUCH. i exhausted all the backstory i got here, _please_ tell me if something doesn't make sense.
> 
> My [tumblr](https://touchmycoat.tumblr.com/), drop a comment!!!!


End file.
